Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4)) (87 page)

Turnin’
her pale face up to ours
, Red
pleads
, “Help!”

In an effort to close it
, Red leans
all her weight on it to push the two s
ides together. She almost closes it, but then her body lurches upward, like someone i
s pushin’ it open
again
from the other side
of the portal
.
She ho
ld
s on and her body slams
back on top of the porta
l when it falls
back to the floor again.

“HOLY CRAP, ZEE! HELP ME!” co
me
s
R
ed’s desperate plea
as she holds
on to
the portal so it wo
n’t ratchet
completely open.

Zephyr g
rasps
the edge of the portal near
her hands, w
r
enchin’ it closed with a decisive SNAP.

“Who was that?” Zephyr asks
in awe.

“
Xavier. He
was right behind me!” Red pants
in exhaustion.

Zephyr takes
the portal from Red, beginn
in’ to crush it when she gasps
, “DON’T!”

“Why?” Zephyr hesitates
.

A dark shadow enters
Red’s eyes.
“
Will it hurt
them?” Red asks
while h
er
face twists in fear
.
“Will they be trapped in there?”

“No,” he replies
, “they can exit back the way they came.”

Red blo
w
s
out the breath she was holdin’
, “
Okay, tr
ash it,” she wheezes
.

Smilin’ broadly, Z
ephyr does
n’t hesitate again. He
walks
to the dust-cover
ed desk near us, placin’ what’
s left of the portal on
it
.

Doubled over, Red continues
to pant, her eyes adjustin’ t
o
the bright light as she looks ‘
round the room bewilderedly.

My attention returns
to Anya in my arms. She, too, h
as a bewildered look
as her green eyes stare
back
at me. “Are you
okay?” I manage
to ask her, e
ven though my throat feels
tight.
God, I want to pull the tie in her hair away and watch her hair spill over her shoulders,
I th
ink, breathin’
harde
r in an attempt not to do that
.

“Hmm
?” she mutters, like she’
s in a trance.

Leanin’ my face nearer to hers
, I press
my lips gently to her temple, just where her soft, black hair swe
eps
back from her porcelain skin.
A light, s
weet scent lingers
in her hair, and
in my mind the fragrance is
what
Paradise
must
smell
like
.
“Are you
hurt?” I murmur
against her skin when I recover my voice.

Her skin blushes
pink, warmin’
beneath my lips, while s
he sha
k
es her head
,
almost numbly,
not speakin’
.
P
ullin’ her closer to me, I
touch her
silky wing. My finger
s
trail
a gentle line down it, seein’
how her glossy feathers shi
ne
almost blue i
n the sunlight. Her cheek rests
against m
y shoulder while her
arms move
tentatively, almost timidly, to the back of my neck.
My heart contracts
painfully
in my chest
, ‘
cuz I realize
that she
is
not hold
in’
me tight
,
like
I’m
holdin’ her. Her
embrac
e i
s much more cautious, much more unsure.

“I’m not all right,” I whisper
near her
ear and I feel
her stiffen. “I’ve been goin’
out of my mind worryin’ ‘bout you
.”

“But…
didn’t Brownie and Buns tell
you our plan?” she asks
, soundin’ confused
.

“Yeah, they told me—
” I
begi
n.

“Then, there
was no need to worry,” she says
blankly. “I merely had to execute it.”

Adrenaline filters
through my system
as
every possible scenario for
w
hat could’ve gone wrong tortures
me again.
My brow furrows
, “You
could’ve bee
n killed by the Gancanagh or
any one o
f those angels if they caught you
!”

“That is why I didn’t
let them catch me,” Anya says in a quiet tone.

Her brash statement does
nothin’
to calm my racin’ heart
, in fact, it’
s
like
salt in a cut
.
“You
shouldn’t’ve been the one executin’ the plan
,” I reply,
breathin’ harder.

Her arms go
slack ‘rou
nd my neck while she stiffens
more. “It had to
be
me. I’m the only one
among us
they trusted.”

“Anya was brilliant,
Russell,
” Red’s
voice quivers
.
I see
he
r lookin’ around Reed’s library
as she’s
realizin’
that we’re back in Crestwood.
Any color she had i
n her face before is gone as she
strains
to
say;
“We have to keep her away fr
om Tau and Xavier. They’re
angry
that she helped me.”

More adrenaline i
s released
in me
, makin’
me want to smash somethin’
.
“What can they
do to her, Zee?”
I ask
, turn
in’ to see his
eyes hood a little
.

“We can discuss th
at later, Russell,” Zephyr says
evasively.

My hand stills
on A
nya’s wing. “You'
r
e
not tellin’ me—
that means it’s bad.”

“They can remand me
to Dominion and put me on trial for treason,” Anya s
ays in a dull voice
with her cheek still restin’ lightly on my shoulder.

“The HELL th
ey can!” I roar. I pull
her away from me,
holdin’ her at arm
’s
length with
h
er feet danglin’ off the ground
so I can
look into her eyes. “There’s
no way I’m lettin’ them near you
! Do you understand me?”

“Put me down. I can take c
are of myself,” Anya says in a calm tone
.

“Naw
,
you
can’t!” I retort
hotly.

“Yes. I. Can.” Anya count
e
rs
, enunciatin’ every word.

I frown
.
“You’
r
e
no bigger than Red—
y
ou
can’t do magic—
no one’s trained you
to figh
t—you’
d
probably
have a hard
time
even
passin’ as human!”

Her face is bright red when I’
m
done pointin’ out all of her flaws. “
Yes, all of that is probably true,
” she admits
,
“
but u
nlike you, I have a plan
that
will work.”

“You
have a pl
an?” I ask
as my eyebrows sho
o
t up. “A plan to do
what?”

“
A plan to kill your evil,
un
dead Faerie
,” she replies
with a frown.

“
Ha!” I fake
laugh
like she made a bad joke. “
I’m not even gonna dis
cuss the
un
dead
freaks with you
! You’
re
not goin’ anywhere
near them. But, I hope you
have a plan to get
outta trouble
with the r
ed-winged egomaniacs.” I reply while my emotions boil
over
. “Those guys tend to be grudge-holders.
”

She waves
her hand like she was swattin’ my worry right out of the air. “
Xavier wi
ll eventually forgive me—
e
specially when the, uhh...
un
dead freaks?” she asks and then goes on, “are
, well, dead.”
I lower Anya to her feet, but I do
n’t let go of her.

“ANYA!
EVIE!
” Buns and Brownie say
in tandem as the
y
burst into th
e library. The Reapers
flitter
to them, group huggin’ them
like teenage girls
do
when they run across each other at the mall.

“We have lunch
ready in the kitchen,” Buns say
s
,
strokin’ Evie’s wing. “You need to eat so we can discuss the plan.”

“I’m fine,” Red says immediately.
“What’s
your plan?”

“Sorry,” Buns
replies
, shakin’ her head. “We can’t discuss it unless you’re chewing on something.
”

“Buns!” Evie begi
n
s to argue, but when she sees
Buns’
s
eyes narrow, she knows it’
ll be quicker if she does what Buns wants. In a flash, Red i
s out of
the room and down the hall to the kitchen.
She’
s back a second later with a wad of food stuffed in her mouth.
“Mmm, griiilll cheesh
,” she muck
s
with pieces of grilled cheese sandwich s
p
ittin’ out of
her
mouth. “Whaass
da pllaan.”

Anya seems
a little disgust
ed when she says,
“It’s you and me on the inside, Evie. We go in together. You’re going to pretend that I’m your prisoner
—
another ‘tie that binds’ that Brennus will belie
ve will make Russell come to him—
”

“WHAT!” I
yell
in irritation.

Red stops chewin’ as we both stare
at Anya, shocked.

Anya ignores
me, continuin’, “B
rennus must have
something planned for you and Russell
—
something that he thinks
will render your magic benign—s
omething like the melody he used in the garden. You’ve both become very powerful, and he can’t be sure that
he and his men can contain you,
especially since Russell beat
him by keeping Evie from him in the garden
. He will most definitely execute his trap on Evie when we
arrive
, so she
can’t fight back. But, since Russell won’t be coming in with us, he won’t be hit with the…uhh, magic
...
eraser…”